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Southern Baptists Approve Steps Aimed at Diversity

With the election of a black pastor to a senior position this week and a new action plan to increase ethnic diversity in its leadership, the Southern Baptist Convention has taken its most concrete steps yet to overcome a history of racial exclusion and to broaden its appeal in a changing American population.

Fred Luter Jr., the widely admired pastor of a largely black church in New Orleans, was elected first vice president of the Convention at its annual conference in Phoenix on Tuesday, the highest position yet held by an African-American. Church leaders said Mr. Luter was the overwhelming favorite to be elected president at the assembly next year.

With 16 million members, the Convention is the country’s largest Protestant denomination, but the numbers are dwindling. Its traditional constituency is aging, and recruitment has not kept pace with the country’s demography. Church leaders say that as the population becomes more diverse, they must act more aggressively to draw in minority churches and followers.

The Southern Baptist Convention was established in 1845 after a break with Northern churches over their opposition to slavery. Until the late 20th century it was a defiantly white institution, often promoting segregation.

“About 30 years ago we were virtually all white — by intention, sadly, but true,” said Richard Land, head of the Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission in Washington, in a phone interview from Phoenix. In a landmark resolution in 1995, the Convention issued a public apology for its past racism and opposition to civil rights laws.

Since then, the number of black, Hispanic and Asian affiliates has grown and now account for 19 percent of the denomination’s churches.

In reports prepared for the Phoenix assembly, Convention leaders acknowledged that minorities in leadership had lagged well behind even the growth of minority members. The meeting adopted sweeping corrective measures, including requiring its various bodies to report annually on the role of ethnic churches and leaders and calling on the Convention president to “give special attention to appointing individuals who represent the diversity within the convention, and particularly ethnic diversity” in committee appointments.

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Church leaders insisted that the plan was not the same as governmental affirmative action policies, which many of them have opposed. The Convention plan does not involve quotas, and no one will be put in a leadership position who is not fully qualified, officials said.

A few delegates in Phoenix argued that the church should remain color-blind as it pursues its primary purpose of spreading the Gospel, but nearly all the more than 2,000 voting delegates supported the diversity plan.

“Leadership has to emerge naturally, but we bear a moral responsibility to encourage development of multiethnic leaders,” Mr. Mohler said in a phone interview.

Gay and lesbian advocates on Wednesday called on the Southern Baptists to apologize for antihomosexual policies and for what they called destructive efforts to “cure” people of homosexuality.

Mr. Mohler said that in contrast to racial issues, the church view that homosexual behavior is a sin is dictated by the Bible. “We cannot compromise without disobeying the Scriptures,” he said, adding that it is also an article of faith that the Holy Spirit can transform people.

A version of this article appears in print on June 16, 2011, on Page A22 of the New York edition with the headline: Southern Baptists Approve Steps Aimed at Diversity. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe